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<p><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></p><table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="100%" border="0"><tbody><tr><td><br /><p class="byline"><em>Night Spirits: The Story of the Relocation of the Sayisi Dene</em></p>
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</tr></tbody></table><p><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></p><table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="100%" border="0"><tbody><tr><td>by Ila Bussidor and Ustun Bilgen-Reinart <br />Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 1997. <br />Reviewed by Kimberley Wilde </td>
</tr></tbody></table><p><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></p><table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="100%" border="0"><tbody><tr><td><br /><p><font size="-1"><i>Night Spirits</i> tells the story of the Sayisi Dene people, from the "...time when all the people and all the animals understood each other and spoke the same language", to the time when the Sayisi Dene were relocated to Churchill, Manitoba in 1956, to the time when a handful of the remaining Sayisi Dene people left that bleak relocation to return to their own ways at Ts'eouli, or Tadoule Lake, Manitoba in 1973. Told in the voices of people who lived through the relocation and the restoration of the Dene, this story unfolds with a compassionate and purposeful clarity not found in any of the government documents that so overwhelmingly altered the lives of the Sayisi Dene people. </font></p>
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<p><font size="-1">It is a story of collaborative writing and research by Ila Bussidor, a Dene woman, mother, former Chief and community leader, and Ustun Bilgen-Reinart, journalist and broadcaster. It is also a healing story, one that begins with a traditional story of the time when the Dene people found and lost and found again their relationship with the Caribou, emerging in contemporary times as a story of the loss and recovery of the Dene people's relationship with the Caribou- and with themselves.</font></p>
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<p><font size="-1">The relocation of the Duck Lake Dene to Camp 10 and Dene Village (shacks next to a cemetery) in Churchill Manitoba in 1956 propelled this self-reliant community into a fifteen-year cycle of devastation and loss- almost a third of the community died as a result of violence and poverty. The restoration of the remaining community members to Tadoule Lake came about at a time when only one family remained who carried the traditional knowledge necessary for living on the land. In 1996, The Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples acknowledged officially the injustices perpetrated on the Sayisi Dene. In 1996, The Dene were granted 23,000 acres of land and $580,000 for economic development. Parts of the Traditional Dene territory were granted to Nunavut, creating a new land dispute to be negotiated. In 1997, Ila Bussidor and her community gave us <i>Night Spirits</i>.</font></p>
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<p><font size="-1">The voices of the women and men, painstakingly transcribed, sound across the pages like the whales in Hudson's Bay- shattering the endless white depths of government documents with each truth-telling story, emerging with tenacity and spirit to face the twenty-first century. <i>Night Spirits</i> is an overwhelming story to read, and is an overwhelming story to have survived. It is a powerful story, told with dignity and grace, returning the shame to its rightful owners. </font></p>
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</div></div></div>Thu, 10 Jul 2014 14:32:39 +0000Anonymous6 at http://turning-point.cahttp://turning-point.ca/node/6#comments